


More Good News

by scapeartist



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 09:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scapeartist/pseuds/scapeartist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During "Good Form:" After their kiss and before Pan's revelation, Hook has a drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Good News

Hook is grateful for a few moments of quiet to pull himself together after Swan called his bluff and bested him again. There are far worse fates than letting Swan get the upper hand. Especially if that hand is going to remove all personal space between them. Right now, though, Hook’s even more grateful for the Neverland magic that allows his flask to remain as full as he believes it needs to be—which, at this moment, is brimming. He accepts that for the first time in a long while it’s not just his own skin he wishes to preserve, and that complicates things in a way that even the bottom of his flask cannot simplify, so why bother striving? With a small, rueful smile to himself, Hook takes one long pull on the bottle, burning his throat but leaving his mind, sadly, sharp as ever.

Neverland puts Hook on edge like few places can. He knows prudence and vigilance are the only traits that keep him on Pan’s good side—and alive—on the most mundane of days. However, this latest venture with Swan and her “family” is beyond risky and Hook knows it and wishes they understood it the way he does. Siding against Pan is not just ill-conceived, it’s suicidal. But he does it anyway because he believes in Emma and because Henry is the only bit of Milah left in any realm and he would give his life to protect that. One thing Pan has never dealt with was a determined and hell-bent parent, so right now the advantage belongs to Henry’s mother. Since their first encounter in the village Cora destroyed, Swan has proven time and again that she is capable of managing tricky situations deftly and with audacity, but Hook knows that if they were to work together as a team—without those stubborn and self-righteous parents of hers, never mind the magical loose cannon that is Regina—the odds of saving Henry would increase dramatically and they just might escape from Neverland in one or two workable pieces. Maybe even for good and forever. Perhaps still, they might succeed...well, Swan will succeed. Collateral damage is still a realistic possibility and he is the most expendable, kiss or no kiss.

After all the time he has spent on Neverland, both under Pan’s employ as well as skirting his notice, Hook knows their doom is always on the horizon like a storm that rises up from nowhere on a cloudless day. It is that thought that reminds him of two absolutes about Pan. One, Pan does not lie, and, two, Pan will use that truth to spear you right through the heart in a way that only he will find amusing. Until now, Hook has been adept at disguising what he holds dear, but not this time. So it is no surprise when he hears Pan clear his throat, marking the end of Hook’s relative peace. He’s been bracing himself for it since he first felt the absence of Emma’s lips from his own.


End file.
